Sunday, 14 February 2010

Sick of being sick

This is going to be another moanfest so if you don't want to know the score look away now....

I am really feeling the effects of my first winter in 2 years. The snow was great and then some more snow was nice but now that the cold and the wet and the grey are going on and on and on and on, my body is having problems coping. I have been ill in one way or another since the beginning of 2010 and the last straw came this weekend. On top of the 3 week sore throat and bizarre cough that only strikes once a day at precisely 3.10am, I suddenly got gout. Yes gout!! What is going on?? I thought this was a disease of overweight, rural, port drinking old money landowning types and bon viveur farmers? Apparently not. It seems that my complete absence of lifestyle is contributing to extreme dehydration. ie. continuous cold symptoms plus continuous central heating plus zero physical activity which results in an apathy that makes putting water in a glass and drinking it seem too much like hard work.

On the job front there was an announcement last week that the Cultural Olympiad (cultural programme to accompany the 2012 Games), had been quietly dropped. So no more prospects there then! Since my last post I have filled in two proofreading tests for a part-time job on a school leaver's salary, applied to work freelance for an online business that proofreads (?) student essays and sent desperate emails to various people trying to generate some interest in my unique skills set. Resounding silence all round so far.

It's grim. Reminds me a bit of Thatcher's 80s which is doubly disturbing. I managed to leave the country for much of that but leaving again now is out of the question so I guess it's payback time. Rather appropriately the Linton Kwesi Johnson song, 'Inglan' is a Bitch', has been thrown up on random a disturbing number of times recently. Unfortunately no one I've come across seems to quite relate to that sentiment. Everyone has their own more specific bitch - the immigrants, the politicians, the banks. In some cases I've been the bitch and have already offended several (now possibly former) friends by culturally ill advised comments relating to burn up on re-entry to this sceptred isle. Maybe I should stay in more...

PS. If anyone in the UAE still reading this drivel is considering coming back to the UK in the near future, DON'T!!

I hear you! Having come back to the UK last year after 8 years abroad (growing veg and raising a child on a remote mountainside in Corsica) I have to say that I am getting all kinds of weird flashbacks too - sadly to the 80s and even tragically to the 70s (well I didn't claim to be a teenager - well, not now, anyway). The depressing onward and downward grind of the market-place mentality, that has put the accountants in charge of so much education and other public sector provision since the days of Thatcher, is now about to add higher education to its landscape of decimation (has anyone tried fending of Mandelsson with garlic?). Farewell creativity and co-operation in the pursuit of learning and hello power-grabbing self-aggrandizing megolamanics, again! And, there is approximately bugger-all around in job terms, particularly for the 'been out of circulation for while and getting a bit long in the tooth' type of labour pool that I belong to. Or maybe that should be unlaboured pool? No, getting a bit child-birthy - which also rules one out of the viable potential employee stakes.On the other hand, I don't have gout or a cold and a good, unfetttered rant is good for the soul - don't you think? - I feel a slight upturn ... now where did I put my ballot paper?About to post my comment and I see my partner's name will display - don't believe it, I'm a WOMAN!!